Better Not Touch
by Gamma Orionis
Summary: Druella Rosier has spent all her life turning herself into the perfect young lady, and she's finally almost ready for marriage, but it's becoming difficult to remind herself that she loves her fiancé... Written for Black Rose Blue's 100K Pairing Challenge on the HPFC forum. Contains depictions of eating disorders.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Written for Black Rose Blue's 100K Pairing Challenge on the HPFC forum, the purpose of which is exactly what it sounds like – writing a romance story of 100K or more.

My pairing is Druella/Abraxas, making this officially the first long, multi-chaptered Druella/Abraxas on the site.

Enjoy!

* * *

_I want to love you, but I'd better not touch.  
I want to hold you but my senses tell me to stop.  
I want to kiss you but I want it too much.  
I want to taste you but your lips are venomous poison…_

_~Alice Cooper_

)O(

_Only boring people are bored_ had been one of the favourite sayings of Druella's nurse when she was young. So often had it been drilled into her mind – repeated every time that she, Druella, complained of the dullness that she was forced to suffer every day – that even now that she was eighteen, she could not say, even in her own mind, that she was bored without hearing the phrase repeated back to her.

This would not have been so terribly bothersome if only she had not been so terribly, _terribly_ bored that she could not help thinking it.

As a general rule, Druella enjoyed parties, especially when she was receiving some attention at them. She was fond of attention in general, and most especially the attention of handsome men asking her to dance.

What dreadful irony, then, that at a party held in her honour – the party that was meant to celebrate the completion of her education, and the fact that she was now _a young lady_ – a party in which she was being positively drenched in attention and praise and comments about what a lovely woman she was growing up into, Druella wanted nothing more than to deliver a sharp slap across the face of each and every person who tried to speak to her.

Perhaps she would not have been so terribly bored if the person that she was _interested_ in – and who was _supposed_ to be interested in her – would pay her some attention.

"Dance with _me_, Cygnus!" she said, catching the arm of her husband-to-be and pulling him away from Charis – _eleven years older than me and already married; what could Cygnus want to dance with _her_ for?_

Charis dropped his hands immediately and stepped backwards. "There is no need to shout, Druella," she said quietly, blinking slowly and then fixing Druella with an infuriatingly impassive stare. Druella frowned at her, trying her best to look serious and slightly intimidating, though when she caught sight of herself in one of the mirrors that lined the ballroom, she thought that she appeared little more than vaguely sulky.

It might have been less of an annoyance that Cygnus was dancing with Charis if Charis had not been, for nearly all of Druella's life, the standard against which she measured herself for beauty and for accomplishment. When Druella had been six and Charis seventeen, and Charis had been lauded for her needlework, Druella had sat herself down with an embroidery hoop and tried, with clumsy and wobbling fingers, to recreate the satin-stitched roses that Charis had been able to sew so quickly. She, Druella, had found herself quite incapable of it, and her nurse had found her hours later in tears over the ruined muslin and wasted silk thread and her fingers all bloodied from pricking them on the needle.

"What in Heaven's name have you been doing?" she demanded, dragging Druella by her wrist to the washbasin to clean her, and Druella barely managed to explain, while doing everything to hold back tears, that she had been trying to embroider as well as Charis had.

The confession had earned Druella a sharp slap on her hand and a reprimand for jealousy, and that had been enough to teach her never to tell that she was trying to imitate the older girl.

The imitation – what Druella privately saw as a competition – had gone on after that, quite undeterred. There were times when Druella thought that perhaps she was a bit foolish for comparing herself so religiously to a girl so much older than herself – that perhaps it was unfair to herself to someone to whom she would never be able to live up to entirely, no matter how hard she tried – but she did it despite such worries.

With dedication and many, many hours spent bent over embroidery needles and spinning wheels and lace bobbins, Druella fancied that she was very _nearly_ as accomplished as Charis – certainly more so than Charis had been at age eighteen. Druella had her old needlework to compare herself to, and she took derisive pleasure in how much more delicate her lacework was, and how much finer her thread. She took some pride in the fact that she had been allowed to spin with silk when she was fourteen – one year younger than Charis – and that she could not only spin it, but also weave it and embroider with it.

But as accomplished as Druella was, she was _never_ going to live up to her where looks were concerned.

Charis had been blessed with the lush dark hair and fine, sculptured bone structure that was so common amongst the Blacks – high cheekbones and pointed jaw and straight, delicate nose – and she had a way of holding herself that was at once imperious and retiring; the ideal combination of qualities in a lady. She was tall – far taller than Druella or even than Cygnus – and willowy, and dresses _always_ fell perfectly on her frame.

Druella, by contrast, was short and rather plump, her face a little too round for grace, and while she fancied her hair a rather pretty shade of blonde, it was nothing in comparison to Charis's hair, which was black and sleek as oil and made Druella's look like a sheep's fleece in comparison. Even as it was right now – smoothed and drawn up into a tight knot on the crown of her head – Druella thought that her hair was quite ugly in comparison. She had curves that Charis did not, which she was told was a good thing because a full figure told people that she had had enough to eat during the war, but if that was true, there would have been no reason that Druella had to cling to a bedpost every morning while her corset laces were tightened enough to make her waist suitably small. Her body hadn't even had the decency to put the curves on her chest where she would have liked them, but had filled out her hips and thighs instead, and those were always hidden beneath her skirts so she could not show them off.

"Druella?" Cygnus asked, and she shook herself, purposefully averting her eyes from Charis and grasping his hand.

"Dance with me," she repeated firmly. "It's my party – my fiancé ought to be dancing with me."

"Quite so, of course." He squeezed her hand gently, then drew her out to the centre of the ballroom floor, swaying slightly with her. Druella relaxed – it was far easier to now that Charis was not so close to her or her husband-to-be – and rested her chin lightly on Cygnus's shoulder. She could feel his warm breath upon her neck, and it was pleasant.

"Cygnus?" she murmured.

"Yes, Druella?"

"Why were you dancing with Charis?"

He lifted his head a bit and moved his hand away from her waist so that he could tip her head up and meet her eyes. Druella's cheeks coloured slightly at his scrutiny, and she turned her head, looking at the ground.

"Are you _jealous_, Druella?" he asked, and there was a faint note of amusement in his voice. "Of Charis?"

"Jealousy is a sin," Druella murmured. "Don't accuse me of sinning, Cygnus. Just tell me why you were dancing with her."

"Because she is my cousin and she offered to dance, and I thought that you were enjoying–"

"Enjoying standing at the side of the room while my fiancé dances with every other woman at the party?" Druella asked, not without some petulance. "At _my_ party? Did you think that I was enjoying that, Cygnus?"

He sighed. "I didn't think of it that way."

"You didn't _think_."

Cygnus fell silent, and Druella did too, preferring stony quiet to the jibes that would no doubt pass between them as soon as he opened his mouth again.

At last, he cleared his throat softly. "I do not want our marriage to be full of suspicion, Druella."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning…" He sighed perhaps unsure of what he meant to say. "Meaning that I don't think that we should each be worrying so much about the other one being unfaithful. We ought to trust each other."

"Will I have reason to think that you are being unfaithful?" Druella demanded sharply.

"Of course not, Druella! All I mean… all I mean is that perhaps our first conclusion if we see each other with someone of the opposite gender _shouldn't_ be that it is infidelity–"

"Do you realize how this sounds, Cygnus?" she asked, aware that her voice had gone quite shrill. "Do you realize what you are _saying_? Are you trying to tell me that when I see you running about with pretty girls, I should just assume that you aren't being unfaithful, no matter what? Because it sounds terribly like you expect to be in a lot of situations that would look like infidelity…"

"Of course I'm not saying that," he said, and his voice went rather cold. "Never mind. Think whatever you care to. But I'm not going to listen to you if you whine to me about my dancing with another woman _before we're even married_. It's petty to do so. Once we _are_ married, perhaps I'll be more willing to let you–"

"We're as good as married!"

"No," he said, dropping her hands and stepping back from her. "No, Druella, we are not. We have a _long_ way to go before we are married."

Druella's eyes narrowed to slits. If she had had more nerve, she would have slapped Cygnus, but she restrained herself and merely glared furiously at him.

"Fine," she said, struggling for control. Part of her wanted to tear him to pieces, and another part wanted her to fall down and cry her eyes out. "Fine, then. If you don't want to act as though we're married yet, then we don't have to. You- go! Go dance with Charis some more." Then Druella turned on her heel, straightening her back, and she marched out with all the dignity that she could muster.

The moment she was out of the ballroom, she dissolved into tears.

It wasn't _fair._

All she wanted out of life was a happy marriage. That wasn't much to ask, she thought – Cygnus was a good man, and even though she wasn't sure that she could say with complete truthfulness that she loved him, she did think that she came close to it. She certainly _liked_ him a great deal, and she wanted to marry him – not like some girls who were forced into marriages with men that they despised – and it stung her that he was already making plans to be unfaithful to her.

That _was_ what he was doing, wasn't it? Druella's stomach twisted a bit as doubt crept into her – perhaps she was being too suspicious. Perhaps he had truly not meant to sound so much like he was planning to commit adultery. Perhaps she ought to go back into the ballroom and apologize…

No. She would not. Whatever his intentions had been, she would stand by her belief that he intended to be unfaithful, and she would not apologize for that.

But she did promise herself, on the spot, standing there in the corridor with tears streaming down her face, that she would never give Cygnus reason to be as suspicious of her as she was of him.


	2. Chapter 2

Druella felt heavy and tired, and if she had been able to, she would have gone straight up to her bedroom and dragged off her too-heavy dress and then curled up in her warm, comfortable bed, buried her face in the pillow and forgotten all about what Cygnus had said to her. But she knew all too well what would happen if she tried to do that – she had tried it before at more parties than she could have remembered if she tried. There would be a fight, with her mother crying that she wasn't being sociable and what would people think – that they would think that she was some sort of recluse and that would reflect poorly on the Rosiers – and her father telling her that she ought to behave like a lady if she was ever going to make a suitable marriage and that it wasn't too late for the Blacks to decide that they didn't want her going to their son after all.

And of course, her nurse would stand and stare at her with a look of disappointment and shake her head and so _obviously_ thinking _where did I go wrong?_

And Druella didn't think she could have stood that.

So she didn't go upstairs, no matter how badly she wanted to. She plodded down to the lavatory instead, intending to wash off her smeared makeup and avoid the party for as long as she could without it seeming suspicious or standoffish. Her hands trembled on the faucets and her chest heaved as she tried to calm herself and hold her tears back. A few escaped her eyelashes and trailed down her cheeks.

_What was the matter with her?_

She raised her head, glaring into the mirror at her reflection. There were dark circles beneath her eyes from her eye makeup and rosy, smudged lines down her cheeks where her tears had washed away the powder that her mother insisted she wear at all times and her skin showed through. Her cheeks must have been flushed red, but the powder was on so heavily that she couldn't entirely tell.

Druella sighed deeply and pulled a handkerchief from her pocket, intending to wipe away as much as she could manage – and if she had to go back to the party with her blotchy, _real_ skin showing, then so be it – and then jumped, dropping it into the sink when she heard the door open.

"Oh, terribly sorry!"

She whirled around, breathless from the surprise, and relaxed a little when she saw that the boy standing in the doorway looked only slightly older than her and looked far more embarrassed to have disturbed her than she was to have been interrupted while washing her face. She was vaguely aware that he was probably staring at the racoon-like circles around her eyes and tried to look dignified.

"Abraxas, isn't it?" she said. If she had had to guess, she would have put him as a Malfoy – he had the pointed features, the blue eyes and his hair, tied back with a black velvet ribbon, was so pale it was nearly white – but she wouldn't have been able to say _which_ Malfoy except that he seemed rather familiar – a year ahead of her at Hogwarts, had he been?

"That's right… I really am terribly sorry, I should have heard the water running and known that someone–"

"It's quite all right." Druella picked up her handkerchief from where she had dropped it, wringing it out. She noticed that her hands were shaking and clenched them into fists to try to stop them. "There was no harm done."

"Quite so…" He cleared his throat, then asked, clearly with all the discrete and proper concern that he could muster, "If I may… were you crying?"

"I was," Druella said. She held her head high. "It's no matter. I just needed to clean up…"

"I don't suppose there's anything… wrong?" he asked. "Anything that I could offer… assistance with?"

Her eyes raked up and down him and her lips twitched automatically. _My fiancé doesn't want me – what a coincidence, there's most _certainly_ something you can do to help_, said a small, crude voice in the back of Druella's mind, and she blushed slightly, then hoped that the fact that her cheeks were already flushed from crying would hide it. She put her hand to her face and made a show of having a small coughing fit until she could keep her a straight face.

"No, thank you," she said, when she was at last confident that she could speak without bursting into a fit of giggles.

_Very mature of you, Druella._

"I'll just… go, then," he said, inclining his head and stepping out swiftly, and as soon as the door was shut again, Druella turned back to the mirror, a large and unladylike grin on her face.

She should _not_ have been having such thoughts about a man besides her fiancé.

"Honestly, Druella, are you thirteen years old?" she asked out loud of her reflection, but she couldn't quite bring herself to feel bad – perhaps because every time she _tried_ to feel bad, she was distracted by her little fantasies…

_He could take me into the ballroom and press me against the wall with his hands all over me – let's see how much Cygnus likes_ that!

"That's stupid," she told her reflection, forcing her mouth into a small frown.

She was being childish – dreadfully childish. Wanting to get back at Cygnus for dancing with Charis by having another man do such horribly improper things to her was petty. A real lady would have forgiven her fiancé – and even if she didn't forgive him, she would absolutely _not_ do anything that would ruin her own reputation because of him.

The humour of the moment was quite gone.

Druella wiped the makeup off her face and splashed cold water on, then crept up to her bedroom to re-powder her face until she looked as pale and flawless as a porcelain doll, then she forced a small smile onto her lips and strode downstairs with her head held high.

"Where were you, Druella?" asked Cygnus when she strode back into the ballroom. She was quite derisively satisfied to see that he had been standing alone at the edge of the room and not dancing about with Charis or some other woman.

"Oh… I just had to step out for a moment," she said, waving one hand slightly as though brushing his question away. "A bit of fresh air, you know."

"I hope you aren't too… upset about what I said," he began tentatively, then looked profoundly relieved when she shook her head.

"No, not at all," she said, though something deep in the pit of her stomach clenched and she had an indescribable urge to give him a slap across his face. "I'm terribly sorry – I overreacted. Do forgive me."

She didn't think she had ever seen anyone look so relieved. "Of course I forgive you."

"Good." Druella reached out and grasped Cygnus's hand, giving him a wide but tight-lipped smile. "I'm so glad we've sorted that out. Now, let's dance and forget all about it."


	3. Chapter 3

Druella barely even looked at Cygnus, though she danced with him for the remainder of the night. She kept her eyes delicately focussed over his shoulder, and when she caught sight of Abraxas Malfoy, she forced Cygnus to dance with his back to him as much as she could do so without drawing attention to herself. She gazed at Abraxas, but his back was to her and all Druella could do was crane her neck and hope that she was able to catch his eye at some time during the night.

"Is everything all right, Druella?" Cygnus asked politely, and Druella had to resist the urge to roll her eyes.

"Yes, of course everything's all right," she told him, rather more sharply than she had meant, but Cygnus did not seem too terribly offended, and he did not bother her with any more questions, leaving her to silently gaze after Abraxas.

He did not look back, and with time, he drifted out of the party, along with the other guests, until it was just Druella and a few of the more stubborn members of the Black family who remained – the Blacks obviously wanting to be the last ones to leave so that they could say that the Rosiers preferred them to any other family, as if the fact that they were marrying their daughter to a Black was not proof enough.

"It has been such a lovely evening," Druella told Cygnus, when, at last, it seemed that he could no longer make excuses to continue dancing with her. She shook his hand off of hers rather impatiently and forced a smile. "Do go on, now – I'm sure you must be tired."

"I could never become tired, dancing with you, my darling," Cygnus told her, with all the solemnity of a priest pledging his soul to God, and Druella almost slapped him. She wanted that sanctimonious simper off his face.

"That's lovely," she said impatiently. "Will you go now, please? I have little strength left, and I must go to bed – Mother and Father say that it is not wise for a young woman to overexert herself, and wouldn't you agree?"

"I surely would," Cygnus said immediately, a small flush rising in his cheeks at the very thought of disagreeing with Druella's parents, and she smiled slightly at him as he hurried off to find his sister, Walburga, and make their exit. Walburga, who had been hovering about for a long time, looked profoundly relieved and most eager to go, and Druella wiggled her fingers at them as they left in a small, rather careless wave.

She was so tired. Tired and more than a touch snappish – very impatient with Cygnus, and even more so when her mother cornered her as she was leaving the ballroom.

"Druella," Gabriele said firmly, catching her daughter by her shoulder and holding her still, "there are some matters that you and I must discuss–"

"Oh, what is it _now_, Mother?" Druella asked, trying to push past her, but her mother caught her by her shoulders, holding her still. "It surely can't be anything so dreadfully important–"

"None of that, Druella. This _is_ something important, and you _will_ stay here and listen if you ever want another party."

_Ha._

"I'm so tired from dancing all night, mother – can't we discuss it tomorrow?" Druella feigned a yawn, dying to get out of her mother's sight and up to her bedroom before she snapped and told her that she could only be patient with one lecture per night and she had already used up that night's on Cygnus.

"No, Druella, we cannot. This is about your behaviour at this party."

"My behaviour at this party?" Druella widened her eyes innocently. "Why, what ever could I have done wrong? I danced with my fiancé all night–"

"No," Gabriele interrupted, "you did not. You danced with him and then you stormed off in one of your moods."

"We had a little spat. Everything's cleared up, it was nothing–"

"Don't you _dare_ tell me that it was nothing, Druella! I will not tolerate this from you!"

"Tolerate what?" Druella asked defensively. She wanted to give her mother a good slap around the face, but she clenched her hands into fists and resisted the urge. It would have been positively lovely to be able to do it, she thought, but the pleasure would have been fleeting and the pain – the pain of having to explain to her father why she had hit her mother, the pain of having to endure days and days and days of being told what a wretched and ungrateful girl she was, the pain of never being allowed anything again as an eternal punishment for it – was more than it was worth.

At least Druella could imagine it, and imagine it she did, mentally watching her hand come up and strike her mother across her pretty, pale face, all delicate eyes and high cheekbones and ever-so-pretty little pouting smiles…

"Tolerate your sullenness. You are a _Rosier_, and Rosiers do not go about pouting and wanting sympathy – that is an unsavoury trait that should be left to be exhibited by people of the Black and Malfoy families, as you quite well know."

_Blacks, certainly_, Druella thought, quite disgusted_. Cygnus would just _love_ any sympathy that anyone would give him, no matter how undeserving he was of it, the spoiled, attention-seeking little brat… but the Malfoys?_ She thought of Abraxas, handsome and confident with a small and polite smile and could not imagine him making himself languish for the sake of getting sympathy from others.

"And what will people say? What will people say when they hear that the Rosier girl prefers to skulk about the lavatory instead of dancing with the man who will soon be her husband?"

"He won't be my husband _very_ soon!" Druella interrupted. Then, feeling particularly daring – perhaps a good deal more so than she should have felt, she added, "Perhaps not at all."

She wasn't even entirely aware of what she was saying until after it was out of her mouth, but once it was, she knew quite well that she wouldn't be able to take it back. She let the last word trail off, then stared at her mother intently, waiting for a reaction.

Gabriele looked as though she really had been smacked, which made an improper giggle bubble at the back of Druella's throat, for she looked just as she had imagined her. Her mouth opened and closed several times and she batted her eyelids as though trying to clear something from her eyes. "I- I–"

"You what, Mother?" Druella asked, all sweetness. Now that she had thoroughly shocked her mother and probably gotten herself into some sort of trouble without even intending to, she saw no reason why she might not just as well take the whole matter a little further. "You didn't expect me to get married to him so _very_ soon, did you?"

"You will be married when I tell you to be married!" Gabriele was finally collecting herself, and now she looked angrier than Druella had seen her in a long time – perhaps even since Druella had initially said that she didn't want to get married at all. That phase of Druella's thoughts had not lasted long, for she _did_ want to get married, no matter how it still bothered her that it was to Cygnus.

"Of course I will, Mother," Druella said with a small and condescending sneer.

"Go to your room, Druella, right this moment!" Gabriele was fairly shaking with anger as she pointed to the stairs. "I'll send your father up to talk to you – you can explain to _him _why you don't want to get married to Cygnus Black!"


	4. Chapter 4

Druella dragged herself upstairs and flopped down onto her bed with little care for how she was surely mussing her hair and dress. She had spent all evening being careful of her appearance, and now that the guests had gone home and she was alone, there was no reason for her to be anymore. Part of her wanted to rip her dress off herself, tear all the delicate silk and lace into shreds, throw it to the floor and stamp upon it, but she restrained herself. That would cause a fight that she didn't want to have to contend with, not when she knew she was already going to have to convince her father that she hadn't been behaving improperly. That would be difficult enough…

She sat up, smoothing her hair, and glanced in her looking glass. It would be so much easier if her appearance was that of a nice and proper girl – the nice and proper girl that her parents wanted her to be and were convinced (however wrongly) that she was. She twirled a lock of her pale hair around one finger, arranging it in a delicate kiss curl below her ear, then sat up, straightening her back and painting her usual polite smile onto her lips.

When her father opened the door and stepped in, he looked tired.

He _always_ looked tired, Druella thought, and he always had, for as long as she could remember. Druella's earliest memories of her father, Peter Rosier, the person she thought she was closer to than anyone else, were of him looking tired – of him _being_ tired, too tired to talk to his little daughter…

"Druella," he said in a quiet voice, sinking down into an armchair and rubbing his forehead lightly, "your mother–"

"Mother's upset because I left the ballroom for a few minutes," she interrupted. "I don't know why she's so worried, Father, really, I don't…"

"Don't you?"

"No…" Druella's voice trailed off and she blinked innocently. "No. I really don't, Father. All I did was step away from Cygnus for a while… I was a bit tired and I thought it would be better for me to take a few moments to collect myself then faint in the middle of the ballroom."

Peter shook his head slowly. "Really, Druella, do you believe that?"

She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, Father."

"You think this is about you leaving the party?"

"I- isn't it about that, Father?"

"No," he told her firmly. "It's not about that at all. Your mother isn't upset over you deciding that you needed a bit of fresh air – she's upset because she can't stop thinking that your marriage isn't going to work out properly."

"Wh- what?" Druella's heart skipped a beat and she felt her palms growing damp. "Wh- why- why does she think that? I mean… I _like_ Cygnus Black. I like him fine… I think the marriage will work out fine–"

"But your mother disagrees."

"She's the one who wanted me to marry Cygnus Black in the first place!" Druella said indignantly. "Father, _she's_ the one who was so eager to have the marriage finalized as soon as possible and _she's_ the one who keeps holding parties and having Cygnus come to them so that he and I can dance together – if she doesn't think the marriage will work out, why is she doing all that?"

"You're a smart girl, Dru," Peter said, almost tenderly, shaking his head. "But you can be dreadfully naïve sometimes…"

Druella fumed. She wanted to tell her father that she wasn't the least bit naïve and that he underestimated her just like everyone else in the world did, but she gritted her teeth and spoke softly, sweetly.

"Then explain it to me, Father," she said, all false innocence. "Why does Mother think that the marriage to Cygnus isn't going to work out and why does she keep bringing him here and pushing for us to get married if she doesn't?"

"It's complicated, Dru…"

"Then explain it! You said I'm a smart girl, but you don't really believe that at all, do you, or else you wouldn't just tell me _it's complicated!_"

Peter sighed, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes and Druella pressed her lips together and dug her nails into her palms, waiting for him to give her an answer. It was infuriating, it was all _infuriating_, all this being treated like a child… being treated like she wasn't clever enough to understand the _oh so terribly complicated_ workings of society and marriage…

"We need a connection to the Blacks," Peter told her at last. "It's as simple as that. If we want to retain any of our good name, we need to marry into the Black family. It's the only way for a family like us to survive…"

"Why?"

"Because," he said sharply. "Because the Blacks are a far larger, far older and far more influential family than the Rosiers will ever be, no matter how much we wish that we were. Just because we are Purebloods, that doesn't mean that we're of the same calibre as the Blacks, or that we have any chance of improving our standing…"

"Our standing with whom?"

"With the other Purebloods. Druella, I _said_ that it was complicated. It would be wonderful for our family's reputation to be married into the Blacks, that's really all that needs to be said…"

"So then why does mother think that the marriage isn't going to work out?"

Peter sighed, standing up.

"She has… ideas about what sort of girl men like to marry. Old-fashioned ideas, I suppose, but that doesn't mean that they're entirely invalid. Men like socialites, men like girls who enjoy parties and dance with them until the night is over, and men like women who hang on their every word…"

"I_ do_ like parties!" Druella protested. "And I listen to Cygnus. I told you, I like Cygnus!"

"Yes," Peter said calmly. "Yes, you like Cygnus. You _like_ Cygnus. But you don't _adore_ Cygnus and consider him the most wonderful man in existence."

"Why- well- I don't–" Druella stammered, taken aback, and Peter shook his head, a small smile playing upon his lips.

"You and I know that just because you don't worship him like a God, doesn't mean that the marriage can't be successful," he told her. "But your mother worries. Humour her. It will only make her all the more pleased when you and Cygnus are happily married with plenty of children in fifty years. Now get some sleep, my dear."


	5. Chapter 5

Druella slept poorly, fitfully. That was hardly unusual – she couldn't remember sleeping well for a long time. She dreamed about Charis and Cygnus dancing and woke up sweaty and cold, feeling sick to her stomach and was barely able to drag herself out of bed to the lavatory. Her face was pale and shone with perspiration in the light and she wanted to be sick.

"You're being stupid, Dru," she said out loud, glaring at herself in the mirror. "They're _related_."

_As though that made any difference_.

Everyone knew that the Blacks didn't shy away from incest – it was one of the many jokes that circulated around the _lower_ Pureblood families when they grew tired of the Blacks' superior attitude. Druella had heard enough quiet, snide comments about their inbreeding to last her a lifetime.

People seemed to think it was _funny_. Or, rather – perhaps they didn't think it was funny at all. Perhaps it was just the only thing they could think to insult about a family so much better than theirs. The Blacks didn't breed with each other half as much as the Lestranges did, after all, and no one commented on the Lestranges.

But just the fact that they _did_ breed with each other –that they did so more than the Rosiers – was enough that Druella couldn't help but worry that Cygnus wanted Charis.

_She's married._

Married to Caspar Crouch, a boring little stick of a man, nowhere near enough to keep a girl like Charis interested.

_As if she'd ever be interested in Cygnus. He's even duller than Caspar._

Druella drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, through gritted teeth, then splashed water onto her face and lifted the shade over the window. There was only the faintest line of light on the horizon to indicate that dawn was approaching and she couldn't guess that it was any later than four in the morning.

She stepped back into her bedroom and glanced at the bed with distaste, for the very idea of going back to sleep made her shudder – she didn't want any more bad dreams. It was better to stay awake.

After all, though she couldn't speak for men's opinions, _she_ privately thought that the effect of a sleep-deprived girl was rather pretty. Thin girls with shadows beneath their eyes and sunken cheeks were much lovelier than girls who were all plump cheeks and wide, false smiles.

_Girls like Charis are prettier than girls like me_.

Charis could look beautiful when she didn't smile – she could look tragic and thoughtful instead of merely sullen, which was how Druella looked when she didn't smile. She had been told so very many times that she ought to smile and she _never_ wanted to.

Druella picked up her embroidery hoop and sat down on her window seat, drawing her knees up to her chest and stabbing the needle in and out of the fabric quickly, trying to keep her hands steady enough to form stitches so tiny that they could not be seen and would build up like a line of individual grains of sugar…

But her eyes drooped with tiredness and her fingers would not move correctly.

_Charis would have no difficulty with this_.

She could think of nothing but Charis, _damn_ Charis, and the embroidery only reminded her how very much better at it Charis was. So she threw down the hoop and rested her forehead against the glass, letting her eyes slide out of focus until the sun had risen properly and her bedroom was filled with pale sunlight and Gabriele came in to dress her daughter.

Druella wished that she still had a nurse to do it. Her last nurse had been dismissed all too recently and Gabriele had said that she would no longer pay a woman to take care of Druella, when Druella would soon have her own host of children to take care of.

"Did you sleep well, my darling?" Gabriele asked, but she didn't wait for an answer, which suited Druella perfectly well, because she did not care to give one. "Stand up."

She obliged and gripped the bedpost, letting her mother lace up her corset quickly and skilfully. Druella tried to keep tears out of her eyes as Gabriele tugged the strings of her corset and Druella stared at herself in her mirror, watching her waist become smaller and smaller until it looked quite unhealthy to her, and only then did her mother move back and was Druella allowed to straighten up, gasping for air.

"It's too tight, Mother–"

"Nonsense. You've always worn it that tight before – if it feels too tight now, it means that you've put on weight."

_It always hurts, and you do _not_ lace it this tightly usually!_ Druella wanted to scream, but she resisted, rubbing her eyes under the guise of brushing away sleep when she was really trying to wipe her tears.

"Cygnus is going to be coming by for tea," Gabriele told Druella. "And I expect you to be civil to him for once."

"_For once!_" Druella was aware of a tearful note in her voice and didn't care. "I am _always_ civil to him, Mother. I've never done anything worse than leave him alone for a few minutes…"

"I saw the way you were eyeing him when he was dancing with Charis last night."

"Should he not be the one chastised for dancing with another woman?" Druella challenged. "I was at least faithful–"

"It is not infidelity to dance with a cousin," Gabriele said sharply. "You will not accuse him of–"

"I'm sorry!" Druella interrupted. She could not stand to be told by another person not to be suspicious of Cygnus – he had already told her that. She drew in a deep breath and let it out very slowly. "I'm very sorry, Mother. I do not mean to be suspicious of him – I know that he is a good man."

"He certainly is. You should count yourself lucky to be betrothed to a man like him." For just a second, Gabriele's eyes flickered and the smallest shade of a frown appeared on her lips. "Not all girls are so lucky."

"Did you count yourself lucky to be betrothed to Father?" Druella asked.

Gabriele glared sharply at her daughter. "What sort of question is that, Druella?" she demanded, and Druella didn't respond. She knew better than to bait her mother unnecessarily – it was so much better to make it seem like her question had been asked in innocence. At last, Gabriele let out a shuddering, tense breath.

"Of course I did. Your father is a very good man," she said, then she turned and hurried out before Druella could ask any further questions.

Part of Druella wanted to gloat, but she couldn't quite bring a smile to her face. And her corset was still too tight.

She slipped into the lavatory and bent over the toilet, pushing her fingers down to the back of her throat until she gagged and spat up a mouthful of acid and what was left of the contents of her stomach. Her corset was still too tight, but she felt better.


End file.
